I can perfectly visualize the type of boilerplate cop drama that reuses the trite “cop hunch” to identify liars. I too think its garbage.

Where I disagree is including “Lie to Me” in this bunch.

Let’s be clear, I’m not a scientist or an expert in this field, I’m just a guy who likes to read about this kind of stuff (which is why I love this website!). So really can’t vouch for the accuracy all of the stuff on “Lie to Me”.. but before even watching the show I’d come across enough stuff to know they’re trying very hard to base it on facts.

Radiolab had an episode about liars, and featured Paul Ekman, a psychologist who has done a lot of work with microexpressions. Microexpressions are a major focal point of the “lie-detection” being employed on the show, and the main character of the show is actually written to loosely resemble Paul Ekman and his work.

I only happened to discover microexpressions via that Radiolab podcast days before I just happened to see the pilot of “Lie to Me” on TV, so I was really blown away when they focused on microexpressions too.

What i think is really amusing with respect to this article is that the show’s writers seem to have the same sort of feelings toward those trite cop dramas and their own lie detection methods, because just about every episode I’ve seen has some character who was “working the case” before the main character, Dr. Lightman, got called in, and thinks Lightman’s methods are garbage and their own hunches are finely sharpened. And yet it’s Lightman who ends up debunking the trite hunches and fallacious beliefs about lies.

One particular example that I enjoyed was a company that was demonstrating a new type of polygraph that was ultra portable, and the assumption was that it was supposed to revolutionize interrogation by being able to detect lies while out in the field. In a matter of minutes, Lightman hilariously demonstrates the fallacies of polygraphs in two ways. He starts by walking in with this ostrich egg and hands it to the guy who I guess owns the technology, and describes some culture that uses these eggs as a polygraph.. the suspect holds one during questioning, and if he breaks it he is guilty. He then mentions how the problem with polygraphs, whether it be ostrich eggs or high tech ones, is that they don’t measure lies, only emotions. Meanwhile, a man on the other side of a 2 way mirror is demonstrating the new polygraph by being asked questions, but at this point Lightman has just sent in a stunningly beautiful woman in a low cut blouse (or something like that) to replace the person asking questions. She begins asking questions, and the guy being polygraphed starts failing miserably because he’s nervous about the beautiful woman. Lightman turns back to the guy who just funded this new polygraph and asks how much he invested in this new device that is fundamentally flawed, and at that point the guy breaks the egg

My point is that I think the show you mentioned, “Lie to Me”, is actually a refreshing alternative to all the shows out there that you had in mind when writing this article.

(Here are some links to reference a few of things i mentioned above:
Radiolab podcast on deception: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2008/02/29
Wikipedia article on Paul Ekman: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ekman
Wikipedia article on Microexpressions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microexpression )

I guess practicing is the best way to get away with a lie, I mean, sale people always look into mirrors to practice their scripts in order to look and sound convincing.

nice goonies reference.

And the essence of good science is that you should always be learning new things.

So Greg, did you gain anything of interest from my article, putting my grammar to one side?

Patrick